Mitt Romney has spent much of this campaign avoiding foreign policy specifics, instead offering platitudes and reckless talk while threatening decades of bipartisan support for Israel by trying to turn it into a political football, as he did with his substance-free trip to Israel this week. But the time for ducking tough questions is over.
Last month, when Romney was asked to detail his Israel policy, he responded, “You can just look at the things the president has done and do the opposite.” If we take Romney at his word, doing the “opposite” of what President Obama has done would mean lessening pressure on Iran, abandoning Israel at the United Nations, giving up on the peace process and slashing record-high levels of security assistance.
Romney could start by explaining what he would do differently to address Iran’s nuclear ambitions – Israel’s and the world’s top security challenge. Behind his tough talk, Romney recommends doing the same thing President Obama has done: pressuring Iran politically and economically while keeping a credible military option at the ready.
Obama is committed to using all tools of American power to prevent Iran from getting the bomb, including leading the toughest sanctions in history. The penalties have cost Iran’s currency half its value against the dollar, unemployment there is expected to reach 16 percent this year and oil exports have fallen 50 percent. The president has also made clear that all options, including military force, are on the table and that containment is not an option. He’s authorized considerable deployments to the region, but has also wisely warned against Romney’s counterproductive “loose talk of war.”
Just as President Obama is standing up to Iran, he is standing up for Israel before the international community. When the Palestinians tried to circumvent negotiations and seek unilateral statehood recognition, the president led a successful international campaign to block it and declared at the United Nations that “efforts to chip away at Israel’s legitimacy will be met only by the unshakable opposition of the United States.”
When a mob attacked the Israeli embassy in Cairo last September, President Obama intervened to ensure the safety of the imperiled Israelis. When the anti-Israel Goldstone Report was released, he condemned it. When the U.N. held the Israel-bashing Durban Conference, he boycotted it. Obama has time and again protected Israel from international attempts to isolate and delegitimize it. And Romney proudly says he would do the opposite?
Romney should explain what he would do that President Obama isn’t doing to bolster Israel’s defenses. In Israel, Romney offered political rhetoric. He still needs to explain his foreign policy in detail to American voters and our Israeli friends. Anything less is insufficient for someone who wants to lead America on the international stage.
